2021 British Grand Prix - Silverstone, July 16 - 18

[DChemTech]

He was given room. What more should he have done? Go off like Leclerc? There have been plenty of times when critique of his moves was in order, but in my view, not in this case. He wasnt making it easy on his rival, but he surely left room.

He went off track in turn 1 in order to stay ahead. Should have given the place up there and then.

Thats a different point and could have been discussed by the stewards had the accident not happened. It does not in any way change the notion that there was sufficient room for Hamilton in thr corner where the incident happened.

Note that i am not blaming Hamilton either. It was a racing incident in my view. But putting the blame on Verstappen not giving enough room or so just doesn't make sense here.

[nzjrs]

Radio from the crash

[i70q7m7ghw]

Does anyone know what diagram Toto was referring to? There's nothing in Appendix L of the sporting code, which as far as I know is the only part of the rules & regs that covers overtaking.

[Hammerfist]

Fight every battle at 100% expecting that your aggressiveness will cause everyone around to yield and you're going to crash at some point.

Live by the sword, end up in the wall sometimes. Or at least thats how i think it goes.

It's sad that he apparently hasn't learned from this incident. He might not be so lucky next time. Hamilton's words in one of his post race interviews imply that he expects to be given room in such situations. This won't be the last time they crash unfortunately.

He was given room. What more should he have done? Go off like Leclerc? There have been plenty of times when critique of his moves was in order, but in my view, not in this case. He wasnt making it easy on his rival, but he surely left room.

He left room because he knew hamilton was there, but it was not enough room. And yes, he should have done what Leclerc did because he was toast as Hamilton was almost fully alongside of him for most of the braking zone. He expected Hamilton to back out of it completely I guess, Hamilton was never going to back out of that one. Not after what has happened earlier in the season at Imola and Spain, and even earlier in this race.

[politburo]

There's an almost carbon copy of the incident in Lap 1 of the Sprint.

In that case, Hamilton was on the outside and Verstappen the inside. The squeeze to the inside just before the braking zone was not as severe (both cars are about a car's width further out than in the Race). In both cases the outside driver was slightly ahead.

I think it would be very useful if someone with a lot more technical skill than I did an analysis of the different trajectory / angles / etc for the two lap 1 incidents. The camera angles are almost identical and it would be interesting to understand why the outside car yielded in the Sprint and why the inside car was able to hit the apex in the sprint. It might shed some light on things. The only disappointing thing is that I don't think the onboards from the sprint are available.

If there's telemetry, that might be very instructive too.

It's also absolutely clear that neither driver wanted contact. As Vettel found out at Ferrari, tapping the rear wheel of a rival is just as likely to make you spin as it is them and who, even if they didn't care about anyone else, would take that risk for themself at that speed? Suppose the wheels hit and one car's corner mounted the other car?

This is what we need, analysis, perhaps Jolyon Palmer might provide a good unbiased analysis like he did for the Norris/Perez incidents in Austria. Or someone else. But even still people will stick to their guns whichever way.

[grubschumi13]

A statement from the FIA read: “The Stewards reviewed video and telemetry evidence. Cars 33 [Verstappen] and 44 [Hamilton] entered turn 9 with Car 33 in the lead and Car 44 slightly behind and on the inside.

“Car 44 was on a line that did not reach the apex of the corner, with room available to the inside. When Car 33 turned into the corner, Car 44 did not avoid contact and the left front of Car 44 contacted the right rear of Car 33. Car 44 is judged predominantly at fault.”

Let's start with this. The Stewards judged Hamilton to be at predominantly fault, but with the added context is he took out his closest rival for the WDC and the race win. The penalty was kind in that it left in the hands of Mercedes the decision of when to take the penalty thus the ability to mitigate it and factor it into their strategy.

A stop go would obligate them to stop in 3 laps and not work on the car.

Predominantly, not solely. So there is a share of blame between the drivers.
And there is no context regarding who the drivers are. Doesn't matter whether it's front runners or back markers. Stewards don't (or at least they shouldn't) decide penalties based on the individuals involved. "Justice is blind" is a common idiom here. There is a bit of difference applied depending on the severity of the incident although that could be argued to be wrong too, but it's the way it is.
And Hamilton didn't "take out" anyone. Taking him out would have been a deliberate attempt to crash in to someone. Obviously neither driver wanted a crash here today.

If that were true that context is not applicable then Schumacher 1997 would have been a much more lenient a censure.

Hamilton did take out Verstappen irregardless of intention.

[El Scorchio]

Sergio Perez is it really a given he will stay at RedBull now 5th in the championship?. He really struggled in the midfield and his 2 stop was not effective in the midfield with all those drivers close to each other.

Absolutely. He’s doing a job for the team. This weekend was a washout for him because of the spin in that silly un-necessary race yesterday otherwise today he would have been in the perfect position to stop Hamilton winning the race.

[i70q7m7ghw]

Radio from the crash

Not seen the onboard from Verstappen until now. At 4/5 seconds you can see Hamilton's front wing to the right, and you can see Verstappen make a conscious decision to turn in, he actually starts to turn in and then suddenly starts turning much more aggressively.

EDIT: I was on the fence until I saw this, at 5 seconds you can quite clearly see when Verstappen decided they were going to have an accident.

[politburo]

Alonso P7 was nice to see. Alonso, may to ever have the fastest car again but you are guaranteed he will always have that racing spirit.

[nimoraca]

From the image (milliseconds before the contact), it can clearly be seen that Max was cutting slightly across towards Hamilton. Max did leave enough room but so did Lewis (several car widths). Its just that none of the two wanted that space, they wanted the same space which was clearly maximizing their cornering speed.

[DChemTech]

It's sad that he apparently hasn't learned from this incident. He might not be so lucky next time. Hamilton's words in one of his post race interviews imply that he expects to be given room in such situations. This won't be the last time they crash unfortunately.

He was given room. What more should he have done? Go off like Leclerc? There have been plenty of times when critique of his moves was in order, but in my view, not in this case. He wasnt making it easy on his rival, but he surely left room.

He left room because he knew hamilton was there, but it was not enough room. And yes, he should have done what Leclerc did because he was toast as Hamilton was almost fully alongside of him for most of the braking zone. He expected Hamilton to back out of it completely I guess, Hamilton was never going to back out of that one. Not after what has happened earlier in the season at Imola and Spain, and even earlier in this race.

It was plenty of room, 2 car widths or so. And he was well ahead after outbreaking Hamilton, who had been alongside (but not ahead).

[Sieper]

It's sad that he apparently hasn't learned from this incident. He might not be so lucky next time. Hamilton's words in one of his post race interviews imply that he expects to be given room in such situations. This won't be the last time they crash unfortunately.

He was given room. What more should he have done? Go off like Leclerc? There have been plenty of times when critique of his moves was in order, but in my view, not in this case. He wasnt making it easy on his rival, but he surely left room.

Agree. He left plenty of room and that can easily be confirmed by just watching the onboards.

I don't understand why people are still blaming Verstappen given all this, the guy was literally a passenger. He defended and it was awesome watching him defend, all within the rules as well, but he got understeered into like how Leclerc did to him in Suzuka 2019, just with less consequence at that point.

Verstappen is aggressive yes, but aggressive driving is surely better than poor driving. And better yet he is not sugarcoating it for the twitterverse, he's expressing how he feels, ain't nothing wrong with that.

Agree. Max didn’t do anything wrong here, nor has he for several seasons. Hard but Fair racing, he always delivers. Others should too, this is what we want to see.

[101FlyingDutchman]

Radio from the crash

Not seen the onboard from Verstappen until now. At 4/5 seconds you can see Hamilton's front wing to the right, and you can see Verstappen make a conscious decision to turn in, he actually starts to turn in and then suddenly starts turning much more aggressively.

EDIT: I was on the fence until I saw this, at 5 seconds you can quite clearly see when Verstappen decided they were going to have an accident.

You clearly misunderstand what you’re seeing on that onboard. And if you have ever done any high speed racing you’d know what I’m talking about

[El Scorchio]

One thing to note is the much maligned tarmac runoff zones we grumble about so often. They would have done a substantial job today at slowing that car down and maybe even keeping it out of the wall altogether. While they may help the drivers circumnavigate track limits easily, they are great for safety and slowing them down. The gravel just gets skidded over.

I am not sure, since he had one wheel off and one in the air, I don’t think the tarmac works that well.

Speaking off which. I am surprised how the tire came off, just by rubbing wheels. Bad for Ves, since it robbed him of any chance of catching the slide, but also quite dangerous.

I cannot remember ever seeing anything like it. Could this be the result of Pirelli’s sidewall strengthening?

You may be right there. He was a little airborne in this case, but I think sooner or later a tyre would have gripped up a bit more on tarmac. Aaaaaanyway.

Totally with you on the wheel/tyre. It just folded instantly with not a huge amount of contact. Haven’t really seen that before.

[Hammerfist]

https://youtu.be/pi7tWxHeqFs?t=21
From the image (milliseconds before the contact), it can clearly be seen that Max was cutting slightly across towards Hamilton. Max did leave enough room but so did Lewis (several car widths). Its just that none of the two wanted that space, they wanted the same space which was clearly maximizing their cornering speed.

Max was not even on the racing line, He was in the middle of the track squeezing a car that is alongside of him going into a very high speed corner. He is expecting hamilton to back out of it there completely for no good reason. You don't back out of that one when you had such a massive speed advantage and overlap in what might be the only chance all race to overtake.